Automatic generation of content recommendations weighted by social network context

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention provide users with suggested content that is weighted based on the social network context of the suggestion. In particular, the suggested content is selected based on incorporating the preferences of users having a relationship with the user. For example, content recommendations from a family member or known friend of the user may be highly weighted over other recommendations.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to online services and communicationstools and, more particularly, to social networks.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In its short history, Internet usage has been mainly driven by portalsand search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google. Recently, the rapidgrowth of social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, hasrevealed a new trend of Internet usage. Social networking generallyrelates to services and tools that help users maintain and expand theircircles of friends usually by exploiting existing relationships. Socialnetworking sites have shown potential to become the places on theInternet where many people spend most of their time, thus making thesesites the main entry point for online activity. Often times, thesesocial networking sites can become the focal point of sharinginformation, such as links, multimedia, music, and the like.

In general, social networking sites and other online services of theInternet offer a mix of features and tools, such as message boards,games, journals or web logs (“blogs”). Many of these sites try to buildcommunities around multi-media or popular culture, such as television,film, music, etc. These sites and their features are designed to keepusers clicking on advertising-supported pages of the site. Thus, theknown social networking sites employ a closed platform of services thatattempt to keep their user-base captive to the site.

One feature of social networking sites is providing recommendations forcontent, such as video, audio, images, etc. Unfortunately, given theproliferation of social networking sites and their membership, it can bedifficult to trust their recommendations. In addition, often times therecommendations are of little or no interest to the user.

Accordingly, it would be desirable provide methods and systems forproviding relevant recommendations for content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention andtogether with the description, serve to explain the principles of theinvention. In the figures:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system that is in accordance withembodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary architecture for an open overlay servicethat is consistent with the principles of the present invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary architecture for clients that areconsistent with the principles of the present invention; and

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary feature of the open overlay service forproviding recommendations for content.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Embodiments of the present invention provide users with suggestedcontent that is weighted based on the social network context of thesuggestion. In particular, the suggested content is selected based onincorporating the preferences of users having a relationship with theuser. For example, content recommendations from a family member or known/friend of the user may be highly weighted over other recommendations.

Reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiments of theinvention, which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Whereverpossible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout thedrawings to refer to the same or like parts.

FIG. 1 illustrates a system 100 that is consistent with the principlesof the present invention. As shown, the system 100 may comprise one ormore clients 102, a plurality of services 104, an open overlay service106, and a network 108. In general, system 100 may be implemented on awidely available data network, such as the Internet. For example, system100 may be implemented as a combination web site and client applicationthat enables users and friends to participate in a live social context.These components will now be generally described.

Client 102 provides a user interface for system 100. Client 102 may beimplemented using a variety of devices and software. For example client102 may be implemented on a personal computer, workstation, or terminal.In addition, client 102 may run under an operating system, such as theLINUX operating system, the Microsoft™ Windows operating system, and thelike. Client 102 may also operate through an Internet browserapplication, such as Firefox by Mozilla, Internet Explorer by MicrosoftCorporation, or Netscape Navigator by Netscape CommunicationsCorporation.

One skilled in the art will also recognize that client 102 may beimplemented with various peripheral devices, such as a display, one ormore speakers, and other suitable devices. Client 102 may also beimplemented with various peripherals for accepting input from a user,such as a keyboard, a mouse, and the like. Although FIG. 1 shows anumber of clients 102, system 100 may include any number of clients.

Services 104 are the applications and services that users of system 100already use. Services 104 may be implemented on one or more servers thatare well known to those skilled in the art. Rather than recreatingfunctionality, open overlay service 106 merely interfaces services 104and allows users to seamlessly continue using the services, such associal networking services, instant messaging, etc., that they currentlyuse. Examples of services 104 include iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine,MySpace, Friendster, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, etc. Anysort of online service may be incorporated into the context provided byopen overlay service 106.

Open overlay service 106 serves as a social network service and stores,manages, and provides access control to the various services and socialnetworks of clients 102. In general, open overlay service 106 isessentially a web site and application service that stores and forwardsinformation shared by users, as well as user profiles and social networkinformation. Open overlay service 106 may be hosted as a publicinstance, similar in fashion to a service, such as Wikipedia. Inaddition, open overlay service 106 may provide various applicationprogramming interfaces that have an open specification so that anyonecan create an interface.

For example, open overlay service 106 may process requests to retrievean object, document, image file, web page, and the like. Open overlayservice 106 may be implemented using a variety of devices and software.For example, open overlay service 106 may be implemented as a web siterug on one or more servers that support various application programs andstored procedures.

The components of system 100 may be coupled together via network 108.Network 108 may comprise one or more networks, such as a local areanetwork, the Internet, or other type of wide area network. In addition,network 108 may support a wide variety of known protocols, such as thetransport control protocol and Internet protocol (“TCP/IP”) andhypertext transport protocol (“HTTP”).

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary architecture for open overlay service106 that is consistent with the principles of the present invention. Asshown, open overlay service 106 may comprise an operating system 200, anapplication server 202, a messaging server 204, a messaging agent 206, aweb server 208, and a user database 210. These components may beimplemented as software, firmware, or some combination of both, whichmay be loaded into memory of the machine embodying open overlay service106. The software components may be written in a variety of programminglanguages, such as C, C++, Java, etc. These components will now begenerally described.

Operating system (OS) 200 is an integrated collection of routines thatservice the sequencing and processing of programs and applicationsrunning in open overlay service 106. OS 200 may provide many services,such as resource allocation, scheduling, input/output control, and datamanagement. OS 200 may be predominantly software, but may also comprisepartial or complete hardware implementations and firmware. Well knownexamples of operating systems that are consistent with the principles ofthe present invention include the Linux operating system, the UNIXoperating system. In addition, OS 200 may operate in conjunction withother software, such as an application server, such as JBoss, toimplement various features of open overlay service 106.

Application server 202 provides the logic for analyzing and managing theoperations of open overlay service 106. As previously noted, applicationserver 202 may be written in a variety of programming languages, such asC, C++, Java, etc.

For example, one responsibility of application server 202 may bemanaging the various identities of the users of open overlay service106. As noted previously, a single person may have multiple identitiesthat they use for various online services and social networks. Forexample, a person named, John Smith, may use jsmith@domain.com as anidentity one service, but use smith@domain2.com as his identity onanother service.

In one embodiment, in order to track the various users of open overlayservice 106, application server 202 may assign each user a uniqueidentifier, such as a numeric identifier. Application server 202 maythen utilize this unique identifier with the identity resources (i.e.,email address, account names, screen names, etc.) used by services 104to identify a person. In some embodiments, application server 202generates a graph of each social network within open overlay service 106in terms of person's names and the identity resources from the point ofview of a particular user based on what is trusted by that user.

For example, given information about a person's name, their uniqueidentifier assigned by application server 202, and associations toidentity resources trusted by other users, application server 202 cangenerate a list of person names and identity resources (i.e., emailaddress, account names, etc.) that should be visible to a particularuser. Hence, the particular user will only be allowed to see identityresources they happen to (or only) know about that user and identityresources that have been verified by application server 202. Forexample, a user A may have a unique identifier of 2345, and emailaddress #1 and email address #2 as identity resources. A user B may onlyknow about email address #1 for user A. Meanwhile, a user C maysimilarly only know about email address #2 for user A. Thus, for user B,application server 202 will only allow user B to view and use emailaddress #1 as an identity resource for user A. Likewise, applicationserver 202 will only allow user C to view and use email address #2 as anidentity resource for user A. However, if user A subsequently explicitlyindicates to application server 202 that both users B and C can betrusted, then users B and C will then be also allowed to view both emailaddresses #1 and 2, as well. The primary uses of this information byopen overlay service 106 may be for sharing a link with person byaddressing that person either by an email address or by a shortnickname, or for viewing a list of persons in open overlay service 106that they think they know.

Application server 202 may also determine what information of a usershould be public or private. In some embodiments, application server 202may default to making information public, but provide an option, such asa checkbox, that allows the user to designate information as private.Application server 202 may also employ per page settings, such as allprivate or all public. Other privacy policies may be implemented byapplication server 202.

Application server 202 may farther provide various search features. Forexample, application server 202 may allow users to search for otherusers based on various criteria, such as age, gender, school, etc.Application server 202 may also allow searches for various resources,such as email addresses, topics, links, etc.

Messaging server 204 manages communications between open overlay service106 and clients 102 via network 108. For example, messaging server 204may be configured to periodically poll clients 102 on a regular basisand have them request information from services 104. Messaging server204 may be implemented based on well-known hardware and software andutilize well-known protocols, such as TCP/IP, hypertext transportprotocol, etc.

Messaging server 204 may be configured to handle a wide variety of dataand may handle data that is in any format. For example, information fromclients 102 may be in the form of an extensible markup language (XML)file or a network location, such as a uniform resource locator (URL) onthe Internet. Alternatively, messaging server 204 may be configured toobtain information from services 104 directly in a peer-to-peer fashion.

Messaging agent 206 serves as an interface between open overlay service106 and online services 104 and may operate to monitor the activity ofclients 102 at these services. In particular, messaging agent 206 may bea relatively small and focused computer application (or “bot”) that runscontinuously, in the background simultaneously for each of clients 102,as other programs are being run, and responds automatically to activityon services 104 that may be of interest to clients 102, such as newmessages, postings, and the like.

Messaging agent 206 may be created by open overlay service 106 (i.e., byapplication server 202) for the benefit of the users at clients 102.Alternatively, for example, messaging server 204 may send information toclients 102 upon request, perform automated searches, or monitormessages or events at services 104.

In one embodiment, messaging server 204 and/or messaging agent 206 maywork in conjunction to perform client-side data scraping on services104. Client-side data scraping may be desirable in some instances whereservices 104 refuse or block a direct interface with open overlayservice 106. For example, MySpace and AOL's instant messaging servicemay be implemented as one of services 104, but is known to block proxyrequests for a client.

Client-side data scraping may be initiated by messaging server 204 orusing information provided by messaging server. Messaging server 204 maypoll client overlay client 302 to trigger a request to one of services104. Accordingly, overlay client 302 may cause one of serviceapplications 306 to interface with service 104 and request data fromthat service, such as web page refresh. Since the request originatedfrom client 102, service 104 will provide a response. Overlay client 302may detect this response and forward it to messaging server 204.Messaging server 204 may then pass this response. Of course, the pollingmay be configured at overlay client 302 based on information provided tomessaging server 204.

Messaging server 204 evaluates the response and determines if anotification event is needed. If notification is needed, messagingserver 204 send a message to overlay client 302. The notification maythen be displayed to the user using, for example, browser 304 or serviceapplication 306.

One application of client-side data scraping may be used to detect whenmessages or postings have been entered on one of services 104. Forexample, on MySpace, users often repeatedly refresh their pages inanticipation of receiving a post or message from a friend. Withclient-side data scraping, open overlay service 106 may automaticallyperform this function, and more conveniently, indicate when the user hasreceived activity on their MySpace page. This notification may appear inthe form of a pop-up bubble or may be displayed as a link on the user'spage in open overlay service 106. Of course, other applications ofclient-side data scraping are consistent with the principles of thepresent invention.

Web server 208 provides a communications interface between open overlayservice 106, clients 102, and services 104. For example, web server 208may be configured to provide information that indicates the status ofclient 102. Such communications may be based on well known protocols andprogramming languages, such as HTTP, TCP/IP and Java. Interfacesprovided by web server 208 may be implemented using well known Internettechnologies, such as web pages, which are well known to those skilledin the art.

User database 210 maintains information identifying users and clients102. User database 210 may be implemented using well known databasetechnology, such as relational databases, or object oriented databases.

For example, user database 210 may include information indicating one ormore operating systems and applications installed on clients 102 as wellas services subscribed to by users. User database 210 may also compriseinformation related to authenticating a user determining the respectiverights of a user relative to other users. For example, a user may selectvarious groups or channels of content in which they are interested inreceiving information. User database 210 may further include informationthat indicates the permissions and delivery of the information toclients 102. Other information that may be included in user database 210may comprise information, such as system and individual permissions ofclients 102 on services 104, activation keys, registration information,and payment information (such as credit card information).

Furthermore, user database 210 may include other information related tothe manner in which open overlay service 106 communicates with clients102. For example, this information may relate to periodicity ofnotifications, email addresses, format of the information, and the like.User database 210 may include data structures to log the activities andtransactions of its users. Activities, such as recent links, history ofoperations, etc., that may be logged in user database 210 are well knownto those skilled in the art.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary architecture for clients 102 that areconsistent with the principles of the present invention. As noted,clients 102 may be implemented on a conventional device, such aspersonal computer, laptop, and the like. Such devices are well known tothose skilled in the art and may typically include hardware, such as aprocessor, a memory, a display, a storage device, a keyboard, a mouse,and a network interface for network 108. Such hardware supports theoperation of various components software. As shown, the software runningon client 102 may comprise an operating system 300, an overlay client302, a browser 304, one or more service applications 306, and a userdata cache 308. Each of these software components will now be generallydescribed.

Operating system (OS) 300 is an integrated collection of routines thatservice the sequencing and processing of programs and applicationsrunning in open overlay service 106. OS 300 may provide many services,such as resource allocation, scheduling, input/output control, and datamanagement. OS 300 may be predominantly software, but may also comprisepartial or complete hardware implementations and firmware. Well knownexamples of operating systems that are consistent with the principles ofthe present invention include Mac OS by Apple Computer, the Windowsfamily of operating systems by Microsoft Corporation, and the Linuxoperating system.

Overlay client 302 maintains an inventory of the software and serviceapplications 306 installed on client 102 and archives one or more statesof activity on client 102. In some embodiments, overlay client 302 maybe configured to periodically connect to open overlay service 106 andperform various operations requested by open overlay service 106.

Browser 304 is an application that runs on client 102 and provides aninterface to access information on network 108, such as information onservices 104. Browser 304 may be implemented as well known programs,such as Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, NetscapeNavigator, and the like.

Service applications 306 run on client 102 to support the servicesprovided by services 104. For example, service applications 306 may beapplications, such as a browser, an instant messaging client, a musicplayer (such as iTunes), and the like that are provided from services104. Other examples for applications 306 are well known to those skilledin the art.

User data cache 308 provides a cache that indicates the activity of auser at client 102. For example, user data cache 308 may includeinformation that indicates documents, such as HTML pages, images, URLlinks, web site access times, and the like.

In order to illustrate some of the features of open overlay service 106that provide a live social context, several examples of features willnow be described. FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary feature of the openoverlay service for providing recommendations for content. Inparticular, open overlay service 106 may allow its users to suggestcontent to their peers in their social network. For example, many usersin a social network (such as a family or group of friends) may enjoy thesame television shows, sports, movies, and the like.

Initially and continuously, open overlay service 106 monitors thepreferences and behaviors of its users and their social networks. Suchbehavior may be indicated based on search requests, sharing activity,and the like. In some embodiments, open overlay service 106 retrievespreference information based on data held in cache 308 in clients 102 inaddition to monitoring the activity of clients 102 with applicationserver 102. In contrast to known recommendation techniques, open overlayservice 106 populates and weights its suggestions based on feedback fromthe social network. This feature allows the suggestions to be moreaccurate and more relevant to a user.

For example, over time, open overlay service 106 may keep track indatabase 210 of what the users watch and create recommendations ofcontent based on that history. Open overlay service 106 also lets usersexplicitly suggest content with each other and tracks the followingactions of the recipient. Hence, open overlay service 106 may graduallylearn which users influence each other to what degree.

Open overlay service 106 may publish recommendations publicly to all ormost of the users or only to the group that contributed therecommendations. Open overlay service 106 may publish this informationon a small scale (“most popular among my friends”) or a larger scale(”most popular among cable viewers this week”).

For purposes of illustration, FIG. 4 shows a scenario where clients 102are labeled “Alice”, “Bob” and “Charlie” are members of the same socialnetwork and use open overlay service 106. Alice, Bob, and Charlie mayinteract with each other and view content independently on their clients102. Of note, the preference data of Alice, Bob, and Charlie may becollected actively or passively. For example, the users may beinteractively prompted to recommend an item of content, or tag contentas high value or low value.

Alternatively, preference data may be passively collected from the user.That is, the users' preference behavior is merely observed withoutrequesting or prompting. For example, preference data may simplyindicate which shows the user played or skipped and where the userpaused, rewound, skipped forward, which websites they visited, etc. Openoverlay service 106 may also passively monitor the sharing activity andmessage traffic between the users in a social network.

Clients 102 then send this preference data to open overlay service 106.Open overlay service 106 may, for example, periodically poll for thispreference data from clients 102. Alternatively, clients 102 may beconfigured to provide their preference data at defined intervals or inreal-time as it's collected.

In addition, open overlay service 106 may collect preferenceinformation, such as cookies, etc., from the various providers viaservice 104. This information allows open overlay service 106 tocorrelate and aggregate the various browsing activities across manysites on network 108.

Open overlay service 106 may aggregate the preference data, either at acentral location in database 210 or by broadcasting results to multiplelocations, such as service application 104. The aggregation could bedone at a small scale (“most popular recommendation among my friends”)or a larger scale (“most popular recommendations among all viewers thisweek”) within open overlay service 106.

Application server 202 may then process the preference data collectedfrom clients 102 and program information 404 to determine suggestedcontent that are of high or low interest to the users. Applicationserver 202 may determine different suggestions for different socialnetworks. For example, application server 202 may determine suggestionsfor different families or groups of friends. This allows open overlayservice 106 to provide distinct sharing among its social networks.Alternatively, application server 202 may aggregate playback data fromall of its users. Such information may be useful for certain types ofcontent, such as sports, family programming, etc.

In some embodiments, application server 202 references the preferencedata and highly weights recommendations from within the user's socialnetwork. For example, application server 202 may use various weightingfactors or statistical techniques to filter the recommendations based onsocial networking context of the user. In addition, application server202 may weight the social networling context based on time. For example,if the user's social network recently focused on travel and golf to acertain location, then application server 202 may upgraderecommendations for golf or that location, especially if they originatefrom within the social network. Likewise, application server 202 maydowngrade recommendations from sources that lack a relationship or havea weak relationship with the user. The strength of the relationship canbe measured based on the social network memberships and sharing activityof the user.

Clients 102 may also selectively choose recommendations from openoverlay service 106. This feature allows various social networks toselectively choose which recommendations they receive. For example,sports shows may be of interest to one group of users or social network.In contrast, content with a particular actor or musical group may be ofinterest to another group of users or social network.

Application server 202 may also filter the recommendations at clients102 based on that client's profile or other criteria. For example,application server 202 may filter recommendations sent to Alice based onvarious criteria, such as Alice's age, Alice's location, Alice's otheractivities in open overlay service 106 as indicated in cache 308, etc.For example, recommendations for content that contains adult materialmay be filtered from being sent to Alice.

Furthermore, application server 202 may send various accompanyinginformation with the recommendations. For example, this accompanyinginformation may be information that indicates the originator of therecommendations, comments by users about the recommended comment, thenumber of users that made the recommendations, descriptive phrases,timing information, duration of the content, and the like. As anotherexample, application server 202 may provide information that indicatesother users agree or disagree with the recommendation. Other examplesinclude indicating a total number of users (even those outside of theuser's social network) and their opinion about the recommendation.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled inthe art from consideration of the specification and practice of theinvention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification andexamples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spiritof the invention being indicated by the following claims.

1. A method of providing recommendations for content to a user of asocial network service, said method comprising: collectingrecommendations for content; determining preferences of the user andpreferences of the user's social networks; selecting recommendationsbased on the preferences of the user and the user's social networks; andproviding the selected recommendations to the user.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining preferences of the user and preferences ofthe user's social networks comprises monitoring sharing activity of theuser and the user's social network.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining preferences of the user and preferences of the user's socialnetworks comprises determining a history of previous recommendationsprovided to the user and the user's social network.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, wherein selecting recommendations based on the preferences ofthe user and the user's social networks comprises selecting onlyrecommendations that originate from the user's social network.
 5. Themethod of claim 1, wherein selecting recommendations based on thepreferences of the user and the user's social networks comprisesselecting recommendations based on recent activity of the user anduser's social network.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprisingfiltering the selected recommendations based on a profile of the user.7. The method of claim 1, further comprising filtering the selectedrecommendations based on an age of the user.
 8. The method of claim 1,further comprising filtering the selected recommendations based on alocation of the user.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprisingfiltering the selected recommendations based on a type of contentrecommended to the user.
 10. The method of claim 1, harder comprisingproviding information indicating a strength of the recommendation. 11.The method of claim 1, further comprising providing informationindicating a source of the recommendation.
 12. The method of claim 1,further comprising providing information indicating an opinion of otherusers in the user's social network about the recommendation.
 13. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising providing information indicatingan opinion of other users outside of the user's social network about therecommendation.
 14. An apparatus comprising means configured to performthe method of claim
 1. 15. A computer readable medium comprisingexecutable program code to configure a computer to perform the method ofclaim
 1. 16. A method of providing recommendations for content to a userof a social network service, said method comprising: determiningpreferences of the user and preferences of the user's social networks,based on passive observation of activity by the user's social network;selecting recommendations based on the activity of the user and theuser's social networks; and providing the selected recommendations tothe user.
 17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining preferences ofthe user and preferences of the user's social networks comprisesmonitoring sharing activity of the user and the user's social network.18. The method of claim 1, wherein determining preferences of the userand preferences of the user's social networks comprises determining ahistory of previous recommendations provided to the user and the user'ssocial network.
 19. The method of claim 1, wherein selectingrecommendations comprises selecting only recommendations that originatefrom the user's social network.
 20. The method of claim 1, whereinselecting recommendations comprises selecting recommendations based onrecent activity of the user and user's social network.